Kai Otton defeats Raoni Monteiro to become the new Saquarema Surf Pro International champion
Kai Otton of Australia won the Saquarema Surf Pro International championship on Sunday, May 29 in a battle that gave the fans plenty to cheer about, and left the judges with a tough decision to make. The Australian got past his Brazilian foe, Raoni Monteiro
ever so marginally, by scoring 15.43 as opposed to Monteiro's 14.93, to clinch the title.
There couldn't have been a better display of extreme surfing than what Otton and Brazilian surfer Raoni Monteiro put up for the crowd. Both surfers seemed to have hit their peak form at the right time as they braved one wave after the other at the event
site, Ituana beach, Brazil.
The final started off with Otton grabbing a 6.83 points from his first wave. Under normal circumstances, anything above 6 seemed a decent score, but that's where Monteiro proved his class by outscoring Otton with 7.33 points off his first wave.
Losing out on the first wave however, if anything, charged Otton up as the Australian came back strongly in the final wave and score a massive 8.60 points. Monteiro needed an 8.11 on his final wave to win the title but could only manage a 7.60, and fell
short of Otton's total wave score of 15.43 by just 0.5 points.
Not surprisingly, Otton was enthralled after his win and although he had a few nervy moments when Monteiro was kicking the waves, the Australian held his own at the end.
Otton said, “Saquarema has the best waves I've ever surfed in Brazil and I don't understand why the ASP World Tour isn't here. The days here were fantastic and I'm really happy to have won this event.”
The Australian surfer further added, “I was really nervous waiting for the score to come through. I knew that he had caught a good one and that he could've gotten the score. During the entire heat I knew that Raoni (Monteiro) would come on strong and have
the support of the crowd.”
Otton bagged US $40,000 with his win. Meanwhile, the runner-up of the Saquarema Surf Pro International, Monteiro received a prize of US $20,000.
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